Magic the gathering world championship

A Pho Vietz restaurant at Utama shopping mall in Malaysia (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – Ton Ngoc Hiep, who already opened 10 Vietnamese “pho” (noodle soup) restaurants in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is planning to bring the brand to the UK and the US.

Speaking with the Vietnam News Agency (VNA)’s reporters, he expressed his hope to introduce Vietnamese cuisine to Malaysian and international friends. If the COVID-19 pandemic had not occurred, he would have opened “Pho Vietz” restaurants in the UK and the US last year.

Although Malaysia boasts a diverse cuisine, the chef has gained a foothold in the country’s food market as there are 10 “Pho Vietz” restaurants with 120 employees in Kuala Lumpur, only six years after its establishment.

Ton Ngoc Hiep (third from left) in front of his restaurant (Photo: VNA)

Hiep plans to open five more restaurants this year, along with managing another in Hong Kong and promoting the brand in Manchester and New York.

When working at a five-star hotel in Ho Chi Minh City in the 1990s, he was tasked with introducing Vietnamese cuisine to Switzerland diners during a three-month programme.

That working trip kindled his pride when foreigners highly appreciated Vietnamese cuisine , he recalled.

During a trip to Malaysia, he had a chance to meet with foreign chefs who wished to introduce Vietnamese dishes in their menus.

Hiep emphasised that he spares no efforts in gathering fresh materials, in a bid to retain the “soul” of the iconic Vietnamese dish as much as possible.

To run 10 restaurants at the same time while ensuring food quality at each of them, the chef set up a centre for food processing and manufacturing./.

The mango growing area currently stands at some 87,000 ha, 48 percent of which is in the Mekong Delta.

Vietnam shipped over 180 million USD worth of mangoes abroad last year, accounting for only 1.15 percent of the world’s total.

China was the largest market of Vietnam, with nearly 152 million USD, or 83.9 percent of the total, followed by Russia, the U.S., the Republic of Korea, the EU, Australia, and Japan, according to MARD’s Agro Processing and Market Development Authority.

To achieve the export target, Deputy Director of MARD’s Plant Protection Department Nguyen Thi Thu Huong called on the ministry to upgrade her department’s technical centers so as to carry out studies helping to remove technical barriers, seek new markets, and conduct pre-export checks.

She also recommended MARD digitize its databases on farming zones, processing establishments, and packaging facilities.

While localities should enhance connectivity between cultivation areas and increase training for local staff in charge of farming techniques, businesses need to seriously comply with regulations from both importing countries and Vietnam, boost production cooperation, maintain constant monitoring to ensure sufficient supply and quality materials, and remain updated on export information, Huong added.

Deputy Minister Tran Thanh Nam said having 48 percent of the mango growing area concentrated in the Mekong Delta is favorable in improving quality and meeting the requirements of importing markets.

However, as the area meeting VietGAP and GlobalGAP standards makes up just 3.8 percent of the Mekong Delta’s mango growing area, it is necessary to boost the adoption of these standards, he noted.

Nam also urged provinces and cities in the Mekong Delta to work to improve quality in every step, from farming and harvesting to preservation, while strengthening links in mango sales.

In particular, they should identify target markets and work with enterprises and cooperatives to help farmers align cultivation practices with international standards.

Source: VNA

Chau Bui is a famous Vietnamese fashionista. Photo courtesy of Chau Bui.

“Selected from over 2,500 nominations and vetted by our team of reporters and a panel of A-list judges, this year’s list features 300 young entrepreneurs, leaders and change makers across the Asia-Pacific region who are braving the challenging environment brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic and finding new opportunities amidst the new normal,” the Forbes magazine noted.

The list selects 30 honorees for each of the 10 categories.

The criteria for honorees making the list include their “demonstration of leadership, how they embody the entrepreneurial spirit that is synonymous with Forbes , and their potential of success in their industry. Other factors like innovation, disruption – and size and growth of their ventures in some categories – play a role in making the final decision,” the magazine said.

Last year, Vietnam had six representatives in the 30 under 20 list.

The Ministry of Finance has recently issued Circular 23/2021/TT-BTC on printing, issuance, management, and usage of e-stamps labeling on tobacco and alcohol products.

The painting ” Portrait de Mademoiselle Phuong ” (Photo: www.sggp.org.vn)

Hanoi (VNA) – An oil painting on canvas entitled Portrait de Mademoiselle Phuong (Portrait of Mademoiselle Phuong) by late painter Mai Trung Thu has sold at an auction for the highest price paid for Vietnamese art .

Offered in the auction Beyond Legends: Modern Art Evening Sale of Sotheby’s Hong Kong, the painting was sold for a record price of 3.1 million USD on April 18.

With a guide price of 500,000 USD, the price of the painting eventually reached 2.573 million USD. After taxes and fees were added, the price totalled 3.1 million USD.

This is more than double the previous highest valued auction sale which the painting Khoa Than (Nude) by Le Pho, which sold for 1.4 million USD.

Portrait of Mademoiselle Phuong was painted by Mai Trung Thu (1906-1980) in 1930, when he was an art teacher at Lycée Français de Hue (a French High School in Hue).

Mai Trung Thu is pictured in 1964 (Photo: sothebys.com)

As one of the first artists who graduated from the first course of the Fine Arts College of Indochina, or Ecole des Beaux-Art de l’Indochine, in Hanoi he was classified as one of the four most renowned Vietnamese artists based in France, together with Le Pho, Vu Cao Dam and Le Luu.

His reputation was closely associated with silk paintings on the subjects of women, children and everyday life, showcasing typical Asian culture in the early 20th century. This painting, beautifully rendered in the oil medium, is exceptionally rare as the artist devoted himself to painting on silk for most of his career.

According to Sotheby’s description, “a monumental, yet remarkably tender and intimate, Mai Trung Thu’s Portrait of Mademoiselle Phuong stands as the most significant and largest painting by the artist to be offered at auction… Poignantly, the beguiling portrait also captures Mai Thu’s deep admiration of its sitter, a noble lady rumoured to be the artist’s love interest”.

The painting was first exhibited at the Fine Arts College of Indochina in 1930, before travelling to Paris to attend the prestigious 1931 Paris Colonial Exhibition, announcing the painter’s entrance into the European art world.

“Mai Thu’s Portrait de Mademoiselle Phuong is one of the most significant and recognisable masterpieces in Vietnamese art history, often likened to Le Pho’s L’age heaureux (The Happy Age). Capturing the lyrical and romantic qualities typical of the early oil paintings of the École’s students, both works were well-received at the 1931 Exposition,” wrote Sotheby’s on its website.

Portrait of Mademoiselle Phuong was also featured in the iconic film The Scent of the Green Papaya, a Vietnamese-language film directed by Tran Anh Hung in France in 1993./.